Darragh Kelly ground-and-pound stops Dorval Jordan

With a little over three minutes remaining, Darragh Kelly made the decisive move.

The 'Moville Mauler' overcame Dorval Jordan on Saturday evening at the 3Arena via a third round TKO.

Kelly, one of the rising talents in Irish mixed martial arts, stepped down to featherweight and delivered a performance of control to maintain his unblemished record at Bellator 291.

At 1:58 of the third stanza, the bout was waved off by Keith Peterson, the referee.

Kelly was in firmly in front on each of the three judges' scorecards, 20-18 on two and 20-17 on the other, at the time of the stoppage.

Kelly spent much of the opening round on the floor grappling with Jordan.

Kelly sported a cut above his right eyebrow early and Jordan managed to dodge out of a triangle choke attempt by the Donegal man.

The 24-year-old SBG fighter came out swinging in the second round, which ended with Kelly on top and punching heavily from behind.

Kelly's coach, John Kavanagh, flew into Dublin, via London from Las Vegas, where he was filming The Ultimate Fighter with Conor McGregor, to corner his fighters.

Kelly, whose band of supporters appears ever-growing, arrived to the stage to the sound of Oró, Sé Do Bheatha 'Bhaile and the big following were in raptures as Kelly mounted the cage having secured the third win of his professional career.

The third round opened with Kelly slipping to the ground after attempting to land a kick.

He soon regained a hold of things. Around 90 seconds into the round, he began to unleash his fury upon Jordan.
The Frenchman was leaking blood now and soon succumbed to Kelly's ground and pound.

The 30-year-old Jordan arrived in Dublin with a 2-2 record card. His last fight, in Cyprus last June, saw him defeat Kostas Bozidis by punches having been stopped via a second-round submission at the hands of Parwaiz Arabzai earlier in the year.

Kelly was making his first outing at featherweight. When he touched the scales at The Gibson Hotel on Friday, the Moville man was a full 10lbs lighter than the 155.2lbs before his win over Kye Stevens in September.

Kelly, who has been working closely with nutritionist Yannick Magee lately, had 0.8lbs to spare when he weighed in at 145.2lbs. “I am going to be the biggest there is,” he said in the build-up. “I'm just a few per cent body fat lower so I'll be in there nice and big.”

Despite moving to 2-0 with a unanimous decision win over Stevens, Kelly cut a frustrated figure in the aftermath and vowed to redeem himself.

Kelly spent some time in Iceland honing his skills with UFC ace Gunnar Nelson. He wanted a 'more efficient' version of himself for this, he said.

He can certainly be content with his evening's work.